Wednesday, January 27, 2016

For my part, I find all the complaints about Donald Trump from National Review persuasive. He is not a 'conservative' in the way we've all been arguing for over the years. But neither are the professional politicians who sell out 'conservatism' in a hundred important ways, and at least Trump isn't pretending. But that isn't what this short piece is about.

My reservations about Trump stand. I will vote for any other Republican candidate before him, and vote for him in the general election, with the foreknowledge that there is a non-zero probability that he will preside over (and maybe bring on) the economic collapse of the entire western world. But he has done one thing in this election which I find to be an undisputed social good - he's put the media and our journalists in their place.

There are few more intellectually homogenous industries than journalism. They reliably place the social dialog far to the left of America's conversations with itself. And the entire population spends much of it's time trying to sift through the spin to ferret out the 'truth' as they see it. the stories are all horribly one sided, never discuss cost vs benefit, and always ... ALWAYS... take a side. For everyone but Fox news it's the cultural Marxist side, and for Fox it's often the opposite. And by telling off and dismissing Fox News, Trump is taking an important stand for the American people.

It's true, we don't really deserve any better than America's TV 'journalists' have given us. But if they are more reasonable and honest about the conversation that might change quickly. The fact that Trump has picked the News organization I most agree with personally is irrelevant in my opinion. someone needs to start letting the American people know that to be a journalist in modern America is to be an expert in absolutely nothing, but to lie about it as if you are.

Trump is at least doing that. And if he keeps it up, there will finally be consequences to being wrong as a journalist. THAT can only make things better. He's treating the press as his servant instead of his master. In my opinion, that's a big enough benefit to America to forgive any of his other sins.

The thing that has caused this stress in my mind, is feminism itself. It's told women to abandon their female role and to become terrible men. It's used emotion and guilt to push women to ignore their instincts, to abandon their strengths, and to shun the many advantages they were given by men when 'treating women differently' almost always meant treating them better. Instead they went into the workforce in a world with stresses they are ill suited to cope with, and pressures they are too emotional to cope with, absent medication.

I am not a Trump supporter. But I will vote for Trump if he wins the Republican nomination. In the meantime National Review would rather take its ball and go home. So be it. But that means that they’ll get to sit at home with their ball, and nothing else.

Conservatism, at least the way National Review thinks of it, is dying. You could argue that it was a dishonest set of politicians who ruined it by being too much like Democrats, but I don’t find that persuasive. If that were the case, we could have easily replaces the politicians with more reputable people, but we never managed. The bigger battle wasn’t a battle over ideas per se, but about what constitutes an idea.

The academy has spent 2 generations convincing America that a feeling is as valid (in some ways more so) as thinking. They have emphasized that the subjective experience is as important as the objective experience. This view will not survive sustained contact with reality, but reality can be suspended by politics for a very long time. And while the rules of politics suspended all consequences for emotionally satisfying but objectively stupid ideas, their view has sucked all the oxygen out of the room. Over the subsequent 2 decades, conservative America has died from asphyxiation.

We are a fringe movement now – we conservatives persuaded by statistics, principle, and rational thought. We people focused on outcomes rather than intentions are now an irrelevant minority. National Review is a part of that minority, and the American body politic sees no reason to include fringe groups like us as a part of the greater political discussion. We’re ‘too mean’, ‘too heartless’ and ‘too racist, homophobic, misogynist, sexist…. Blah , blah, blah, blah… hate!”

Ironically, I think the time has finally come. I think it’s finally time to John Galt it. Elect Trump. Let him blow it all up – hell, encourage him to do so. It’s the only way these fools on the left will ever be convinced that politics can’t put off consequences forever. They've won. Feelings and intentions have won. We can no longer argue with facts, reason, and logic. Those tools no longer persuade enough people to keep the boat afloat. So it's time to let it follow it's natural course.

In other words, it's their claim that no matter how poorly black actors and actresses have done, or how few the good parts for them, or really anything, some awards should be given to black actors based solely on their race. In their idiotic world view, simply being black is merit enough to justify an award. They offer this suggestion absent irony, and with no thought to it's potential downsides.

But what they don't consider is that in order for this world view to define what we think of as right and wrong, the concept of merit, one person doing 'better' than another and being rewarded for it, must die. The very concept of merit needs to be considered 'racist' and therefore morally unacceptable. Nothing else would be 'fair'.

And along with that comes the white guilt. You white folks who are silly enough to believe that working hard and doing well is enough for you to succeed, remember, under this view that would be considered openly racist. Under this thought model, you're viewed as guilty just for being white. It doesn't matter what you do, say, think, or achieve. All that is secondary. If you've done well then you are only entitled to an award after the black candidate receives theirs, regardless of how they performed.

The only entertaining upside of all this will come when they apply today's moral standard to historical figures, as they occasionally do. Eventually we can be entertained by the claim that mother Theresa was a scum sucking racist because there aren't enough black saints, and that Abraham Lincoln was an evil bigot because there weren't enough black presidents.

And whatever else you do, say, or think, if you're white you are guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty guilty, of hate, hate, hate, hate, hate!!!!! Remember that you evil bigots. By the standards of Spike Lee and Jada Pinkett Smith, If you succeed in any way, you are guilty of racism.

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Actually, I can't hear any racist dog whistles, but after years as a sport shooting enthusiast and hunter, my hearing isn't what it used to be.

Wayne said: "The American people know liar when they see one." For the record I don't think that's a dog whistle, I think it's a direct accusation. Nothing explicitly racist about calling a politician a liar, as far as I can tell - especially when you include video clips of his lies.

Monday, January 11, 2016

I am not a huge Trump fan. I think my creds on this score are well established. But I genuinely don’t understand the reaction of the Republican establishment to the success that Trump is seeing on the ground. Trump may be a carnival barker or a clown or whatever else you want to say about him. But only an imbecile would ignore the fact that the message he has is resonating. I never took the Republican establishment to be so stupid.

My problems with Trump continue to be on his substance. I think he has risky ideas that will lead to dangerous outcomes. But as we saw in the last two election cycles, substance alone does not win elections. It takes style too – sometimes style alone. And though he’s a little garish and combed over, Trump’s “stand up and make the others back down” style has been a “Yuuugge” success. So why hasn’t the rest of the field started to embrace that?

There is this idea that masculinity, is unfashionable. This is the result of a culture that has been soaking in the rancid anti-intellectual milk sop that is feminism, for five decades. It’s gone on so long that the very idea of a gender specific virtue has become distasteful to many Americans. This is especially true of those in the media, entertainment and journalism sectors. But Trump, and a great many of the men and women who support him, don’t buy into that. It’s not actually Political Correctness that they’re rebelling against, it’s the ideas that gave birth to it. Trump is 'manning up' and the other 'establishment' candidates he's running against, for some reason are not.

What’s most ironic though is that Trump is indirectly and maybe unknowingly advocating for a return to masculine virtue, without being a particularly good example of it – at least not publicly. His public persona as a‘reality TV grotesque’ paints him as shallow and vain. Publicly he's a man who though successful, isn’t exactly worthy of much in the way of male admiration. There is a legitimate question about how much of his public persona is just for the camera, but as I've said before, his public image is more of a PUA poseur than that of an actual Alpha male. If the public Trump is all the Trump there is, then
he's not a 'real man', he just plays one on TV. Want to know the difference between the two? Think of a leader of men. Now ask yourself if you'd let that man lead you into combat.

I’m beginning to wonder though, how much of Trump's public persona has been created by and for the media that profited from selling it. I have met and conversed with the man, and OK, he’s no super-genius. But he’s not an imbecile either. In a semi-private conversation (with no reporters nearby at least) he’s was perfectly ready to admit the things he didn’t understand, and that’s an admirable quality in a leader. He was also quite polite and steady, in spite of his dealing with an arrogant young kid with a chip on his shoulder. And he certainly has a better grip on finance, economics, and the general principles and virtues of western society than any English professor I've ever met. (To say nothing of the women's and ethnic studies professors.)

I know that writing about this conversation again is an awful lot of rehashing of one 20 minute chat that took place decades ago, and I apologize for that. But today I find myself rethinking it through the lens of my own experience. I wonder if Trump might be more measured and advisable in person than his hyperbolic public image would otherwise indicate. If so, then in spite of whatever he does in terms of messaging to get himself elected, he might turn out to be a better president than he would seem at first glance. Lord knows that he has a far better grip on observable facts than the current occupant of the white house.

It’s almost as if there are two conversations happening simultaneously – one for high information voters, and one for the low. Trump may seem to be a bit of a lightweight for the former. And because that's so, the Republican elite is continuing the same old mistake of believing that's the only conversation that matters. But these days that's obviously not true. It's low information voters who elect American presidents now, and in that conversation, Trump is knocking it out of the park.

So if no one from the Republican Establishment wants to start ‘low information messaging’ like Trump is, with his rejection of feminism, and 'manning it up', we had all better get used to the idea of a president Trump. Because if taking only the high road couldn’t get Mitt Romney elected, it certainly isn’t going to save Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz, whatever their virtues.

Friday, January 8, 2016

Hillary Clinton WILL NOT be the nominee. The Obamas hate the Clintons and will do what needs to be done to keep Hillary out of the Oval office. Sometime later this year, more information will be released by Obama & Co. that further damage Hillary that will lead to her indictment. She will be busy trying to stay out of prison instead of campaigning.

What I see happening after the fall of Hillary: Brokered convention. The dem team nominated will be people that are not currently running. One of the nominees for President or VP will be a woman.

The short answer to the question of "what you should do when you are accused of being a racist" is 'nothing'. If you're white, (or Asian, or even if you're a light skinned latino) and have even a passing acquaintance with objective reality, you will certainly be accused of of being a racist at some point in your life - likely several points. For someone like me who was raised to not be concerned about a person's skin color, this can be very troubling the first time it happens. But these days it's become so common that it's very important to try to keep it in perspective.

Today, anything that doesn't explicitly involve giving generously preferential treatment to someone who is black, will inevitably result in an accusation of racism. Even doing nothing at all and "being white" is enough to bring on the accusation. So the first and most important thing that anyone should do when accused of racism is to remember that the accusation isn't automatically assumed to be true any longer. Back in the day people would get fired from their jobs for being accused of racism. These days, the economy would grind to an immediate halt if everyone accused of being a racist were sent home. While the accusation of racism is being tossed around pretty much constantly, the results that come from the accusation have become smaller and smaller.

It's also important to remember that while the person who is accusing you of racism may be very upset, they're really only expressing political self interest. Even if they truly and honestly believe you've exhibited some racist sentiment, there is no reason to believe you actually have. Women have an amazing ability to convince themselves of things which aren't actually true for the sake of winning an argument. This is sometimes referred to online as the 'rationalization hamster'. And when it comes to racism accusations, the rationalization hamster is perfectly willing to work triple overtime. But don't worry. Both men and women are accustomed to this (in other women at least), and just because she believes it doesn't mean anyone else will.

"Wait" you say, "what if it's a man who is accusing me of racism?" Well men do make such accusations occasionally, but if they do, one of two things is occurring. Either they are a man who thinks like a woman, ie. a far left social justice warrior (usually white), or they are actually aware that they are only pretending that you're a racist to support their political views. If they're pretending, then arguing like a man, (rationally, calmly, and with supporting objective facts and evidence) will be persuasive. Even if you can't convince him because of his political posturing, at least you'll convince any rational observers.

But if they're a man who is thinking like a woman, then you're in a more complicated situation. For a man who is dedicated to that kind of thinking, their self image is simply too tied up in their political views, and their political philosophy is all about making losing into winning. There's little you can do to change the mind of someone like that. Even women who think like women out of biology are more persuadable with facts and evidence than a man who has chosen to think that way out of expediency. So you should limit your expectations when trying to persuade.

Instead, and especially because this kind of thinker will almost certainly be a white male so the risk is of political blowback is reduced, I think you'll probably be better off having a bit of fun with it. I'd try asking him in a very condescending tone if he has his period right now and it's made him a little cranky, or if his bra is too tight, or his vagina bothering him in some way. Few things irritate the white men of the left like questioning their masculinity, because deep down they know that they've already conceded it for the sake of politics. And though that rarely changes their minds, watching their anger makes for good fun. don't be afraid of it becoming physical. Men of the left are nothing if not cowards.

By far the most important thing though about handling your first accusation of racism, is that you should not take it seriously. Don't be at all defensive, or pretend that their is any merit in the accusation whatsoever. And do all you can to avoid any emotional response to the charge whatsoever. Doing so would only lend credence to this and all other fraudulent 'racism' claims. Better to wave a dismissive hand and walk away than to respond emotionally to an argument specifically designed to illicit an emotional response, because the presence of that emotional response will forever be pointed to as evidence of your 'guilt'. It's the whole point of feminine centric argument tactics like this.